leon-alberti
Forum Replies Created
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It was close (8-7), but we got all the bills passed by the committee.
The menhaden industry likes to brag that 2200 people rely on them for work . . . they probably had half of them packed into the committee room today (slight exaggeration, but not much). They even flew in their South African CEO with his fancy accent to make a big splash!
Big thanks to CCA and the other supporters that came to the committee. On to the House!
BTW, if anyone knows any of these Senators and wouldn’t mind giving them a call on this, please let me know.
<fieldset>
Hensgens, Bob
Chair | Dist. 26 | R</fieldset><fieldset>
Fesi, Michael “Big Mike”
Vice Chair | Dist. 20 | R</fieldset><fieldset>
Allain, Robert
Member | Dist. 21 | R</fieldset><fieldset>
Duplessis, Royce
Member | Dist. 5 | D</fieldset><fieldset>
Jenkins, Sam
Member | Dist. 39 | D</fieldset><fieldset>
Kleinpeter, Caleb
Member | Dist. 17 | R</fieldset><fieldset>
Lambert, Eddie J.
Member | Dist. 18 | R</fieldset><fieldset>
Connick, Patrick
Ex Officio | Dist. 8 | R</fieldset>
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I’ve got a sub-group of 6 guys and 2 boats. Staying in the Catfish houseboat 30-Apr through 03-May.
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Are the captains planning on sharing routes or coordinating where people go in any way? I have 2 boats (myself and another) and I’m going to give him a few dozen routes and markers for his GPS so that we make sure we’re both talking about the same thing when talking on the radio.
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Anyone ever tried Bayou Segnette? Tested my new kayak propulsion system the other day and there seemed to be a lot of surface action in the evening. Wondering if reds make their way up there much.
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Not only that, but almost every single one of those people could find work elsewhere pretty quickly.
For example, there was a shrimper there who testified. Acy Cooper was his name. At one point in his testimony, he pointed out that any pressure on commercial fishing would cause people to not want to enter the field of commercial fishing and that domestic fishing, and shrimping in particular, was dying – even his own kids don’t want to get into it.
Then Captain James Braddock (sp?) spoke. He is a captain of a menhaden vessel. He got choked up when talking about how this would put him out of a job . . . how his family would be affected. Very moving testimony.
But, the whole time I’m sitting off to the side in the room wanting to yell, “Hey, Acy – why don’t you call up James in a couple of months and offer him a job – I’ll bet he’ll take it!”
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Say these words, exactly: “Listen here, you sumbish – I know who you are and I’m watching what you do!” OK, don’t do that. Really, just something like:
“Hi, this is [name] from [town]. I’m an avid fisherman who is interested in protecting our Louisiana fisheries. There are currently some bills, like HB 855, that are being considered that help us protect this resource from exploitation. I would really appreciate it if you would vote in support of this and similar bills when the time comes. Thank you!”
It might help if you also list your street name if you are in a more populated area – you want to make sure that they know you are voting for them.
Ultimately, you want to sound real. Me? I talk about how my daughter fishes with me and is going to school to be a marine biologist and wants to study fish in the Gulf. But, the way LA is going, we could end up like the Chesapeake Bay with a collapsed fishery because of menhaden overfishing.
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This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by
leon-alberti.
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This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by
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Thank you!!
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Yes. You are 100% right.
Here’s some quick and easy math to put it in perspective. Last year, they killed 22,000 redfish. And, that’s a lot, right. Well, hold on to your britches!
In LA, the average slot sized redfish is 22.5″ long and weighs 5lbs (1). A healthy, mature redfish eats around 2% of its body weight in food per day (2). That equates to ~0.1lbs of food per fish, per day. The 2024 menhaden harvest was 1.030 Billion (with a “B”) pounds of menhaden (3) taken over the course of their 200 day season (April 15-October 31).
Doing some simple math ([1,030,000,000 * 0.1] / 200) results in enough food being taken out of the water to feed 51.5 MILLION REDFISH.
There is a reason that our grandfathers used to bring home redfish by the icechest, yet we are limited to 4.
1 – https://tpwd.texas.gov/fishboat/fish/didyouknow/coastal/reddrum.phtml
2 – https://srac.msstate.edu/pdfs/Fact%20Sheets/322%20Red%20Drum-%20Production%20of%20Food%20Fish.pdf
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This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by leon-alberti.
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This reply was modified 1 month, 3 weeks ago by
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This is the kind of pirate activism I can get behind! hahaha
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Good!! They monitor that to see how much attention it’s getting. At one point, they even mentioned how many people had emailed the committee (using that link), where those people were from, and how many supported it.
So, literally, everyone that emailed made an impact!!
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Honestly, I’m not overly familiar with the shrimp industry, their impact, etc. My guess is that taking on menhaden is kind of “low hanging fruit” (though still incredibly difficult). I imagine it would be nearly impossible to take on the shrimping industry.
The current slate of bills SPECIFICALLY targets just menhaden, as it talks about “purse seines”. Shrimpers don’t use those, so they aren’t affected.
Yet, even though they aren’t affected in the least, there was still at least one shrimper that came out to oppose these bills. And no fewer than 3 legislators lumped shimpers, oystermen, and menhaden fishers together. Heck, even Mr. Fancypants Francois CEO of Westbank Fisheries tried to show that “commercial fishing” is bigger and more important than recreational fishing. Luckily, he was shot down pretty quickly by another legislator pointing out that his numbers included shrimp, oysters, other fish, AND menhaden.
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This reply was modified 2 months ago by leon-alberti.
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This reply was modified 2 months ago by
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I think they’ve updated it, perhaps again? As of March 4, the season opens May 1.
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As a final count, my boat will be me+3. But, I think we are going to stay in our own cabin at the Marina. So, don’t save us a space on a houseboat. Thanks!
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This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by leon-alberti.
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This reply was modified 5 months, 1 week ago by
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Hey Shooter – any confirmation of that 2nd houseboat yet? I’m assuming you’d like a final headcount of people I’m bringing?
